Give the Man Some Room!

Fascinating, fascinating insight into the mind of our President today. I know, I know, it's amazing to contemplate that he even has a mind. I tend to think of him on the same level as a sock puppet - it has a little face on there, and it mimics human expressions and seems even to communicate, but you know it's really just some smelly piece of detritus which some other guy's hand up its ass.

So this will be one of those rare occasions wherein I concede that, yes, the Leader of the Free World probably does have a fuctioning primate brain.

Anyway, the Prez is on vacation right now in Crawford. For five weeks. Five! Seriously, when was the last time any of you had a five week paid vacation. Really. I haven't had one in years. The last time I didn't work for five weeks, it wasn't a vacation, it was unemployment. And even though I applied, I wasn't actually provided with checks from the government.

But it's not just me. Almost no one I know gets five whole weeks leave from work. I worked in an office for three years, and if you put all my paid vacation together you wouldn't get five full weeks.

I don't know if you guys know this, but we're in the midst of the longest Presidential vacation in 36 years.

Okay, fine, whatever. This is pretty much a good thing. I don't mind Georgie's not in Washington making decisions. I'd prefer he hung out in Crawford, clearing brush and taking bike rides, for the rest of his term. Leave the governing to the professionals.

But, of course, he can't spend all his time doing what he wants. He has to fight back against the bad P.R. of military mom Cindy Sheehan.

Ms. Sheehan, of course, is the mother of the late Casey Sheehan, who died when his truck exploded in Iraq. She has set off a media firestorm since August 6th, when she camped outside of Bush's Crawford Ranch demanding an audience with the President.

So now you're caught up. The insight we get into Bush's mind comes from journalist Ken Herman of Cox News Service (like Cox Cable? I don't know...) He reveals Bush's excuse for not meeting with Cindy Sheehan...he has to go on with his own life.

"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say."

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

Unbelievable.

I'm not one of the people who thinks that Bush has no right to send men into battle unless he himself was in battle. Because those aren't the rules - the Commander in Chief is the Commander in Chief, regardless of his own military experience.

I'm also not one of the Michael Moore-ites who thinks that, in order to vote to send people to war, you have to be willing to sacrifice your own son or daughter in combat. Politicians are supposed to vote on what they feel represents the greater good, based on what they feel their constituents would want them to vote for. Not on what's important enough to be worth their kid's death.

But I am one of those people that feel like, if you're President and your decision costs thousands of kids their lives, you are then responsible to those parents. You better be able to explain to them, reasonably, why their children needed to be sacrificed.

This is a good reason I would never want to be President (along with about 500 million others). I don't think I could ever make that decision, regardless of the importance of the mission. Call it a personal weakness, whatever. Just as I could never actually go into battle, I could never vote to send others into battle, I don't think.

But, even if he can't provide a 100% solid reason why Casey Sheehan needed to die, even if he's unwilling to even meet with this woman for a few minutes (and, yes, I know he briefly met her once before), the very least he could do is speak about her case respectfully and with sincerity.

When a reporter asks him about it, he could say "I feel our meeting would only cause this woman and our nation more grief, and I feel that there is nothing more that I could say to Cindy Sheehan that would ease her incredible pain. All I can say is that I wish her the best in the future, and that I greatly regret the terrible cost this vital war has had on her family."

It's callous, sure, and opportunistic, and not the truth. But he could say it. At least it's respectful. But to respond that he's too damn busy enjoying life to meet with a greiving mother, a greiving mother whose son gave his life in the service of a futile and endless war...well, it's the kind of lowdown, skeezy bullshit we've all come to expect from America's Worst President Ever.